Psychiatrist Says Hayes' Rage Turned To Strangulation, Rape

Komisarjevsky At Courthouse, But Not For Hayes Trial

October 28, 2010|By JOSH KOVNER, jkovner@courant.com

NEW HAVEN — — The jury weighing whether Steven Hayes will go to death row for the Cheshire home-invasion killings was given plenty to consider Thursday afternoon, including a damning statement from Hayes' brother and a tense exchange between the prosecutor and the psychiatrist who examined Hayes for the defense.

Prosecutor Michael Dearington introduced a statement from Hayes' younger brother, Matthew, to counter testimony that the crime was an aberration in Hayes' otherwise troubled but basically nonviolent life.

Matthew Hayes portrayed his brother as a conniving, sadistic, violent thief who saw Matthew take countless beatings from his brutal father for Steven Hayes' misdeeds. At one point, Steven Hayes held a gun to Matthew's head, according to the statement, which was given to state police after the home invasion.

Examples of Hayes' sadistic behavior toward his brother included hooking Matthew to the garage door by his belt and raising the door up and down, and holding Matthew's hand to a red-hot burner.

Matthew said his brother's life of crime was not a result of bad parenting or poor childhood. He said Hayes never learned to take responsibility for his actions.

"Steven is what Steven is because he's a coward," Matthew Hayes wrote. A clerk read the letter aloud to the jury.

Matthew Hayes said that he gave the statement to aid in his brother's prosecution, and that the family would not assist in his defense.

"The family of this monster will have to live with this forever," he wrote, adding, "There is enough to hang him. … Steven is alone. He will answer to God."

Earlier in the day, testimony focused on Dr. Eric Goldsmith, who examined Hayes for the defense, and statements that Hayes gave to police after the crime and later to Goldsmith.

Did Hayes lie to the police when he said after his arrest that he saw the youngest victim, Michaela Petit, 11, alive after returning from a bank where he had forced Jennifer Hawke-Petit to withdraw $15,000?

Or did he lie to Goldsmith when he said that co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky told him upon his return to the house that Dr. William Petit Jr., bound and beaten in the basement of the home, had died; that the two girls, Michaela, and Hayley, 17, were also dead; and that Komisarjevsky had left his DNA on both of them.

"Now you're going to have to get your hands dirty," Hayes reportedly told Goldsmith, quoting what Komisarjevsky purportedly said after telling him that everyone in the house was dead.

It was Hayes' account that led Goldsmith to his conclusion: After being told that the remaining family members had been killed, Hayes flew into an uncontrollable rage, fueled in part by a sense of being betrayed by Komisarjevsky, and strangled Jennifer Hawke-Petit to death and raped her afterward.

Goldsmith said that this extreme emotional reaction was of the type that a jury considering the death penalty could view as a mitigating factor.

In reality, Dr. Petit escaped, and previous testimony showed that Michaela and Hayley died of smoke inhalation.

Dearington posed this question to Goldsmith: If what Hayes told police was true — that he'd seen Michaela alive and even noted that she had changed her clothes after being ordered to shower following an alleged sexual assault by Komisarjevsky — then wouldn't most everything Hayes told Goldsmith in hours upon hours of prison interviews be a lie?

Goldsmith agreed that if the statements to police were accurate, then his psychiatric report on Hayes would be discredited. But the doctor said he felt that what Hayes told police was untrue, and that what he told Goldsmith over months of interviews, during which a rapport was established, was believable and consistent.

"Do you subscribe to the theory that if you repeat a lie often enough, it eventually becomes true?'' Dearington asked.

"No,'' said Goldsmith.

Dearington drilled Goldsmith on this point: If the girls were alive, there was no reason for a sudden emotional outburst by Hayes, and no reason, other than to commit a monstrous act, to set fire to the house with the captive family inside. Dearington noted that the original plan was to bring the family outside, and then set the fire.

When Goldsmith said he continued to believe that Hayes' murder of Hawke-Petit was in reaction to his belief that a simple kidnapping and robbery had turned into multiple murder, William Petit, seated in the courtroom gallery among family members and friends, recoiled and shook his head.

Hayes was convicted Oct. 5 of 16 charges, including six punishable by death, in the murders of Hawke-Petit, Hayley and Michaela. The current, penalty phase of the trial will determine whether he is sentenced to death by lethal injection or to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Komisarjevsky is scheduled for trial next year.

Goldsmith testified that Hayes had relapsed into crack addiction in the days before the home invasion.